Education Secretary Stresses School As Adventure, Not Chore

September 07, 1986|By Rogers Worthington.

In a comprehensive look at the nation`s 80,000 elementary schools, the U.S. secretary of education urges a more rigorous academic curriculum, but one that is far more practical, interesting and in keeping with traditional American values.

Education Secretary William J. Bennett is particularly critical of a social studies curriculum that leans too heavily on ``ersatz`` social science and not enough on the basics of history, geography and civics.

``What our children need are lessons that explore unfamiliar possibilities . . . tales that stretch the imagination and sense of wonder,`` Bennett writes in ``First Lessons,`` the first major report on U.S. grade schools in 33 years.

Bennett finds fault with the use of ``stultifying`` reading texts at the expense of such classics as ``Aesop`s Fables,`` ``Charlotte`s Web`` and

``Winnie-the-Pooh.``

He says that there are too many fill-in-the-blank workbooks and not enough writing based on a child`s observations and that mathematics, as being taught, seldom relates to real problem-solving and has no clear timetable for mastery.

Science classes, which should be emphasizing analysis and the scientific method of inquiry, are instead serving up ``a grab bag of esoteric facts and stunts.``

``We need a revolution in elementary school science,`` he writes. ``There is probably no other subject whose teaching is so at odds with its true nature.``

Rather than relying on lectures and textbooks and ``a laundry list of workbook theorems,`` Bennett urges a focus on the teaching of scientific reasoning as a ``hands-on adventure . . . that can sweep children up in the excitement of discovery.``

But it is social studies, potentially the most politicized area of grade school curriculum, at which Bennett fires his longest salvo.

As taught in many schools, Bennett says, social studies is ``an odd, amorphous grab bag`` of anthropology, law, psychology, sociology, history, science, economics and geography which children often find boring.

It is woven into a matrix sequence known as ``expanding environments,``

which focuses first on a child`s immediate environment, the family, and moves to wider environments, such as the neighborhood, and the people who work in it.

Bennett says this approach too narrowly defines a child`s interests and world, which has been expanded by exposure to televison. It neglects America`s heritage, ``our common culture . . . the events, people and ideas that define us as a nation and a civilization,`` he writes.

Other parts of Bennett`s report also may create mild controversy among educators. He suggests using businessmen and retired military officers as principals. He takes no stand on bilingual education, leaving it to local discretion, and he urges acceptance of the parents` desire to send their children to the school of their choice.

But it is in social studies that his proposals, if implemented, would create the biggest curriculum changes. The ``expanding environments`` concept is the organizing structure for social studies at many grade schools.

``If `expanding environments` is thrown out as the organizer, something else must take its place,`` said Frances Haley, executive director of the National Council for Social Studies.

Bennett recognizes the nation`s multi-ethnic and multi-cultural heritage, but he frowns on neglecting to teach the unity of ``our American tradition in the name of `globalism` or `multi-culturalism.` ``

``Instead,`` he writes, ``we must be ready to hand these newcomers the instruction manual for our pluralist democracy.``

William Attea, superintendent of Glenview Elementary School District 34, agrees with Bennett`s call for a re-evaluation of social studies ``in keeping with the knowledge base children now have in coming to school.`` But he draws the line at focusing too exclusively on American traditions.

``To teach our heritage and traditions to the exclusion of other cultures is a mistake. We should be teaching an acceptance and tolerance of other cultures,`` he said.

A basic knowledge of American history, geography and civics has declined among students to an alarming level, Bennett writes. One survey cited showed that 20 percent of American 12-year-olds in a test group could not find the United States on a world map, and another survey showed that only half of 17- year-olds tested could place the Civil War in the proper half-century.

In recent years as state legislatures have urged that schools give more time and attention to math and reading, social studies, as well as science, have been cut back.

``Social studies and science have traditionally been the stepchildren of the elementary school system, and elementary school teachers have not been prepared to teach them,`` Attea said.

``First Lessons`` is the latest in a series of Department of Education reports over the last three years that have jolted legislators and educators into an intense scrutiny of public school teaching and curriculum.